Author Guidelines

Authors should submit an electronic version of their article and a biographical note via the journal's online platform, using the 'Submissions' page. The name of the author should not appear on the article but should be entered online during the submission process together with contact details, affiliation(s), ORCID ID (if available), and other required information to process the submission.

It is essential that the following guidelines are observed. Contributions that are not presented in house style will be returned for revision. 

After the peer review process and any changes which are needed there, authors of accepted articles and book reviews will also be asked to respond promptly to comments from the editors, copy-editors, and typesetters. Corrections should be confined to typographical errors or to specific questions raised by the editors. Revisions cannot be accepted at this stage.

General

  1. Documents should be written in UK English and be formatted using a standard sans serif typeface with one and a half line spacing.
  2. A title, short abstract of 50–150 words, and six keywords must be supplied with your article.
  3. All articles will be refereed and should normally be 5000–8000 words in length (including footnotes). Longer articles, either representing more substantial pieces of work or additions following peer review, are sometimes published but please discuss this with the Editor before submission. Research Notes, typically of 3000 words, will also be considered and may be published at the Editor’s discretion.

The following style guidelines apply to both Research Articles for peer review, and Research Notes. However, please also see our advice about choosing which to submit. The submission form will ask you whether the piece is a Research Article or Note when you submit your manuscript.

  1. Quoted matter, if more than forty words long, should normally be indented, without inverted commas/quotation marks. Leave a line space above and below the indented material.
  2. Quotations of up to forty words should form part of the text, and should be indicated by inverted commas/single quotation marks. Double quotation marks should be used only for quotations within quotations.
  3. In general, words and phrases in languages other than English should be italicised, both in main text and footnotes. All accents should be included. Words and phrases in languages which do not use the Latin alphabet (such as Greek, Hebrew, Russian, etc.) should be transliterated as well as given in the original. It is often appropriate to provide a translation or explanation at the first use of a technical term, including one derived from another language. An example of this might be χαίρω (chairó, rejoice!).
  4. British spellings should be used. This includes:
    • -ise endings (recognise, emphasise, organisation), not -ize
    • -our endings (colour, flavour, honour, neighbour), not -or
    • -re endings (centre, metre), not -er
    • -yse endings (analyse), not -yze
    • In verbs, -ll- (travelled), not -l-
    And many others. For authors who ordinarily use US spellings, it is recommended that they set their proofing language to British English when reviewing the text.
  5. Page references should be in the following form: pp. 92-98, pp. 153-79, pp. 198-207. Always use short hyphens without spacing.
  6. Dates should be expressed, 1605-09, 1678-92, 1681-1704. Always use short hyphens without spacing.

Upper and Lower Case 

  1. In the case of 'church', use upper and lower case as follows:
    • Upper case for the whole Church or a denomination, e.g. the Church of England
    • Lower case for the building, e.g. St Mary’s church
    • As an adjective: church teaching
    • also: churchgoer but High Church
  2. In the case of Meeting or Meeting House, use upper and lower case as follows:
    • Upper case for a specific place, e.g. Bournville Meeting House
    • Lower case for the building, e.g. 'they gathered at the meeting house'
    • Upper case when referring to a specific Friends’ worship/business meeting, e.g. ‘they spoke in Meeting today’ but not when making a general statement, e.g. ‘Quaker meetings are sometimes silent’
    • Upper case for a specific group or event, e.g. ‘Britain Yearly Meeting’, but lower case for general statements, e.g. ‘Most monthly meetings keep minutes’
  3. In the case of the Scriptures, use upper and lower case as follows:
    • Upper case when it is a name e.g. Bible, Scripture, Qu’ran (and in this instance, always use this form and not ‘Koran’); but lower case when it is an adjective, e.g. biblical and scriptural
    • Gospel - when referring to a canonical book, e.g. the Gospel of Mark
    • gospel - when speaking in more general terms, e.g. gospel teaching
    • God, Christ, Kingdom of God, and the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, etc.
  4. In general, use upper cases for definite articles or specific, named people, unless there is a clear reason not to do so.

Abbreviations 

  1. Use of full stops in abbreviations: When an abbreviation is formed by cutting a word short, a full stop must be used at the end; when an abbreviation is formed by the omission of internal letters, a full stop is not generally used. Thus: Rev., Prof., but St, Dr, JP, MP 2. CE, BCE should be unpunctuated and set in small capitals.
  2. LSF is to be used when referring to the Library of the Society of Friends at Friends House, London, England.
  3. Abbreviated titles of journals and other publications (such as QS, ODNB, OED, JFHS and DNB) should be italicised without full stops between letters.

Verbal Style and Spelling 

  1. Brackets within brackets should be square, e.g. G. H. Jones (‘The Decree of Yahweh’, VT 15 [1965], pp. 336-44). However, the major exception to this rule is that square brackets should be used to indicate text inserted into a quotation by the author, or to indicate an original publication date of a modern reprint, in square brackets, e.g. [sic], (1999) [1901].
  2. Numerals are written out in full when they are ten or below, when they begin a sentence and when they are an exact hundred, thousand, million, etc. Numbers of centuries should always be written out in full: twenty first century; nineteenth century etc.
  3. The words ‘per cent’ should be used rather than the percentage symbol.
  4. Possessives. For possessives of proper names ending in an ‘s’ add a possessive apostrophe, e.g. Jones’ views.
  5. Ellipses ( . . .): all quotations are in the nature of things an extract from a longer text, so ellipses should not be used at the beginning or end of a quotation simply to indicate that in the original text there are preceding and following words. They are correctly used if words have been omitted from within a quotation.
  6. Use: first, secondly, or first, second (but not firstly)
  7. ‘E.g.’ and ‘i.e.’ are only permissible in the body of the text if they introduce a list or are within brackets. Likewise, please avoid ‘etc.’ unless it is in a footnote.
  8. Do not use op. cit. and ibid. and idem.
  9. Avoid ‘f.’ and ‘ff.’ and ‘et seq.’
  10. Decades should be represented thus, 1950s, 1860s, without apostrophe.
  11. Diagrams, tables, illustrations, and charts should be all titled as Figures and numbered sequentially through the article. They should be submitted as separate files but their approximate location within the article should be clearly marked and highlighted in yellow, e.g. Figure 1 about here. Captions for illustrations should be listed after the main body text and should include:
    • Title or Description. For example, Figure 1: Portrait of George Fox by James Holmes, after Gerrit van Honthorst, published 1799.
    • Source & License. Add the website name, link, or license type (like Creative Commons).
  12. An em dash (where used to create a strong pause or emphasise a point), preceded and followed by a space, should be used rather than a hyphen or en dash in the main body text.

Biblical References 

Please observe the following abbreviations for books of the Bible:  Gen., Exod., Lev., Num., Deut., Josh., Judg., Ruth, Sam., Kgs., Chron., Ezra, Neh., Est., Job, Ps. (plural Pss.), Prov., Eccl., Song, Isa., Jer., Lam., Ezek., Dan., Hos., Joel, Amos, Obad., Jon., Mic., Nah., Hab., Zeph., Hag., Zech., Mal.; Mt., Mk., Lk., Jn., Acts, Rom., Cor., Gal., Eph., Phil., Col., Thess., Tim., Tit., Phlm., Heb., Jas., Pet., Jn., Jude, Rev.

  • Use Arabic numerals throughout: 2 Cor. not II Cor. Colons between chapter and verse numbers: Lk. 6:12
  • Hyphens to mark sequences of verses: Jn 10:12-14, 16 (note the space after the comma).
  • Short hyphens for sequences extending beyond a single chapter: Mt. 6-9
  • Semicolons to divide distinct references to different chapters of the same book: John 6:15; 14:12
  • Semicolons to divide single references to separate books: Lk. 4:12; 2 Cor. 3:8

Biblical references may be placed in parentheses in the text - e.g. (Mt. 2:6-8) - or in the notes but please be consistent.

Inclusive Language 

  1. Where a gender-inclusive alternative is possible, it should be used. For example, ‘humanity’ rather than ‘man’.
  2. When personal pronouns are used to refer to groups or hypothetical individuals, all genders should generally be included. The use of singular 'they' is acceptable when appropriate. For example, instead of 'The Christian has to acknowledge his dependence on grace', it would be better to write 'their dependence', or use the plural, 'Christians have to acknowledge their dependence on grace'.
  3. In the main text, refer to individuals by their current or most recently-known names and pronouns. In cases where someone has changed their name and/or pronouns, this can be noted in a footnote only if the information is needed in order to locate their publications or archive sources.
  4. When referring to groups who are racialised or oppressed within a class or caste system, aim use the terms currently preferred by members of that group in your main text. Capitalisation of ‘Black’/’black’, ‘White’/’white’ and other terms have multiple meanings in different political contexts and we ask authors to be sensitive to this, making the issues explicit when they are relevant. The journal's standard practice is to refer to 'Global Majority countries' (or to be more specific and name particular nations) instead of 'the Third World'. Contested and historical terms can be used in quotations. In cases of doubt, a footnote explaining your choices is welcome.

NB The Editorial team may advise that a content warning is needed in extreme circumstances.

Referencing Styles and Footnotes 

References should be made using footnotes. These should contain all information needed for the reader to locate the source, as there is no separate bibliography.  

Short title: when a book, a chapter or an article is referred to again using the footnote system, after its first occurrence, a short title form is used, e.g. Martyn, ‘Have we Found Elijah?’, p. 235. The order of data for bibliographic entries for a book in a footnote is the following:

  1. author(s), editor(s) (ed., eds) comma (with surname first, then initials only, with space between initials as below) comma,
  2. title (colon: subtitle in sentence case) comma,
  3. in editor (names followed by (ed.) (if there is an editor as well as an author) comma
  4. translator (trans. followed by name and initials) semicolon
  5. series comma
  6. number in series semicolon
  7. number of volumes (e.g. 2 vols.) semicolon
  8. reprint status (repr.) comma
  9. place of publication colon. If USA State is a place of publication, use standard US postal abbreviation (PA:)
  10. publisher comma
  11. edition (e.g. 2nd edn, rev. edn) comma
  12. date [original publication date in brackets where required] full stop.

Book and journal titles are in italics.  

Examples:

·      Book:

o   Gunton, C. E., The One, The Three and The Many, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 1993.

Please note articles from periodicals or titles of book chapters are printed within single quotation marks. Page numbers should always be included with a space after p. or pp.

·      Chapter/article in a collected volume:

o   Martyn, J. L., ‘Have we Found Elijah?’, in Hamerton-Kelly, R., and Scroggs, R., (eds.), Jews, Greeks and Christians: cultures in late antiquity, trans. Smith, J.; Series in Jewish and Christian Relations, 21; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2nd edn, 1976, pp. 56-87.

o   Pink Dandelion, B., ‘Conclusion: the nature of quaker studies’, in Pink Dandelion, B., (ed.), The Creation of Quaker Theory: insider perspectives, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004, p. 226.

·      Journal article:

o   Barrett, L., ‘Theology as Grammar: regulative principles or paradigms and practices?’, Modern Theology 25 (1988), pp. 155-72.

o   Abbott, M. P. and Abbott, C., ‘Redefining Quaker Simplicity: the Friends Committee on National Legislation building, 2005’, Quaker Studies 12 (2008), pp. 230-52.

o   Zimmer, K., ‘Premature Anti-Communists?: American anarchism, the Russian revolution, and left-wing libertarian anti-communism, 1917–1939’, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History 6/2 (2009), p. 46.

Include the issue number of a journal within a volume only if page numbering is not consecutive within the volume. Use a stroke, not a colon, between the volume and issue, e.g. 25/2.

The following conventions should also be observed

  1. For more than three authors or editors it is permissible to use et. al. only on the second mention of a reference in the footnotes.
  2. Title and subtitle. Between the title and subtitle of a book there should be a colon, not a full stop (though occasionally a book has a more complicated title and a full stop is more appropriate). The sub-title should be in sentence case.
  3. More than one place of publication. When a publisher has more than one office, only the first stated or the head office should be given.
  4. More than one publisher. Where a book has been published by more than one publisher, cite the one you have consulted.
  5. For web references, cite when accessed, e.g. National Ocean Service, ‘What is a Watershed?’, accessed 20 June 2024, https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/watershed.html. Please include the ‘http://’ or ‘https://’ prefix where it is part of the address. Please date all web references in the style: 15 February 2022.
  6. Note the following abbreviations:
    • ed. (editor, edited by)
    • eds. (editors, edited by)
    • trans. (translator, translated by)
    • trans. (translators, translated by)
    • rev. (reviser, revised by)
    • edn (edition)
    • repr. (reprint)
    • vol./vols. (volume/ volumes)

Except for ‘edition’, these abbreviations should be followed by a full stop/period.